In Blood and Gold
by thousanth
Summary: The price of love is high, and is paid in blood and coin and reputation. For the prompt: Final Fantasy X, Auron/Braska: unrequited love – "must I dream and always see your face?"


The price of love is high, and is paid in blood and coin and reputation.

**Gold**

The father of the woman he is to marry tries to buy his love with gold. Already, he has chosen the wrong coin, but to turn a mistake into an insult by assuming the head of this warrior-priest can be turned by riches is to close and lock his heart, and break off the key whilst doing so. Auron listens to the promises, to the assumptions of success that lie beneath the words, and all the while he thinks of the man he will serve, and how he will serve him faithfully and with purity of heart.

"I regret that I am not interested," he says to the father.

Silence. Disbelief. He is walking from the room just as incredulity turns to anger behind him. All that gold lost. He will be a poor man for the rest of his life.

_Perhaps, but only perhaps,_ he would think in response, if he was the sort to spare a thought for such things. But he is not, and he is already wondering how he can be with the man who already owns his heart.

**Glass**

"As fragile as glass," the man says, and smiles with the gentleness that breaks Auron's heart. "I would know."

They are talking of reputations and how easy it is to damage them, and of what damage Auron has done, _will_ do, if Braska agrees to his proposal. At least, Braska is. Auron is looking at the man he has sworn to protect and thinking only of how he can continue to do so.

"Auron," says Braska, and the light of the setting sun catches on the silver stitching that threads the edges of his robe. Auron is watching his lips and does not see. "You stand to lose everything if you pursue this path. Is it really worth it?"

_Don't insult me!_ is his answer, but he would not dare to speak out of line to his own summoner, even if that summoner is his friend of many years, even if he has not yet accepted him as his guardian. He _will_ do, Auron is certain of it. Instead he replies, "This is the only path I can follow."

Braska sighs, but ever so slightly, and it's only because Auron is watching his face so closely, and knows him so well, that he sees it. His friend smiles, knowing him so well in return - _too_ well perhaps - well enough to know that there is no use arguing with him. "Then be my guardian, my friend. Come with me on my journey."

Auron kneels.

"To the very end," he swears.

Braska reaches down and brushes the strand of hair from his forehead with the tips of his fingers, but does not, cannot, reply.

**Copper**

Every fiend that raises tooth or claw or spell against the man he has sworn to protect will die beneath the edge of his sword. He swears this with every cut of his blade, every strike that bursts monsters into their pyrefly fragments and sends them glimmering back into death. He will be the last thing they ever see on this plane of existence.

Afterwards, he sits in silence as Braska holds him pinned in place by the strength of his will alone. He does not need healing, but he could no more push this man away than he could strike him. Instead he glowers across the fire at the fool who accompanies them, grinning and carefree in his idiocy. Now there is a man that Auron _could_ strike, and it is only his disinclination to upset Braska that holds him back.

"One more," Braska says softly, his mouth so close to Auron's ear as he leans over him that Auron can feel the wetness of his breath. Cool palms come to rest upon the strongest muscles of his shoulders and soothing magic overcomes the pain that burns within them. Were they alone, Auron might lean into those hands, might look up and meet Braska's gaze and pour out his heart. But then, maybe not. Jecht is an excuse in this, just as he is in so many other things. Auron is man enough to admit that, if only to himself.

Instead, he closes his eyes and lowers his head as his summoner takes away the pain that burns in his body. In his mouth, he can still taste blood.

Sometimes, when he dreams, he speaks aloud the words in his heart, but he never sees the reaction of the one to whom he speaks, for there the dream ends. Those nights he wakes in a cold sweat and then is shamefully, ridiculously, frustratingly relieved to find that aloud he never spoke the words at all.

Through deserts of sand and snow, through crystal forests and endless seas of green he has followed his summoner. He has held his silence all the way.

Even when, finally, the snows take him, it is Braska he sees leaning down over his body. Braska, smiling in calm acceptance. Braska, outlined in gold, warm amidst the blizzard. Auron screams in rage and the vision shatters like glass, and all that is left is the copper taste of blood in his mouth and the knowledge of the price he has paid and will keep on paying until the very end.


End file.
